Frayed Knots
by sunlitroses
Summary: It was ridiculous, but he was pretty certain that his scarf had magical powers.


Disclaimer: I own nothing and profit none.

A/N: This is a sequel to a previous story "Knit Together," but I've tried to make it as stand-alone as possible. So long as you know that Will and Magnus knit a scarf in the previous story, you should be good to go! I should probably post a 'fluff-warning' for this, as well. It's very fluffy. You've been warned!

* * *

It was completely ridiculous, but he was pretty certain that his scarf had magical powers.

Many nights – most nights really – Will's ability to sleep was limited. He got a handful of hours, sometimes consecutive, sometimes not, and was ready enough to bounce back into the game. Bouts of insomnia, even stretching across a few days, were not uncommon. Just annoying.

On the bad weeks, though, when the days blurred together as he desperately tried to will his body into some semblance of sleep, insomnia crept into something approaching torture. Now, however, on those weeks, Will had a surefire solution. At about his breaking point, he would turn on the bedside lamp and reach into the bottom drawer of his nightstand. From there, tucked carefully beneath the more common residents of a nightstand, he would carefully pull out a soft grey scarf and wind it about his neck. Then, unearthing an often ragged skein of yarn, it was the work of a moment to prop himself against the headboard and puzzle his way through the rows of knitting that marched steadily away from his needles like obedient soldiers. It might take only a couple rows, it night take many inches, but it never failed to give him hours of the deepest, most dreamless sleep he could ever remember.

The thought of working the magic every night had crossed his mind, but it didn't seem right. He had lived with his erratic sleep patterns for almost as long as he had been alive. He could handle it. Magic was for when nothing else worked.

* * *

It was a similar state of desperation that drove him to his scarf when Magnus left him in charge for a week. She disappeared to an unreachable destination and, in short order, something fried the grid, matters went awry at the Sydney Sanctuary, and one very slimy Abnormal decided to stake out the Old City sewers as its own private feeding grounds.

On Day Three, Will wedged in three minutes of time to retrieve his scarf.

When everything settled out a day and a half before Magnus' scheduled return, he replaced it in the drawer with a feeling that was almost reverence.

* * *

After Kali, he took to tucking it under his pillow at night. It wasn't like working the magic every night, he reasoned, that was still for special occasions. Still, after the long nights of sleepless anxiety that not even the scarf could assuage, it was comforting to be able to slip a finger through a soft loop of scarf and drift off effortlessly.

* * *

It was on a night beginning to turn towards the coldness of winter that Will came back to his room, ready to collapse with exhaustion. He fumbled through the motions of getting ready for bed, fell into the covers, flicked off the bedside light, and slipped one hand under the pillow, eyes already closing.

A beat later, he sat up in bed again, wide-awake, turning the lamp on with a force that knocked it askew and began to strip the bed. A hurried fifteen minutes later, he stood in the rumpled mess of bed clothes and articles from throughout his room, tossed aside in haste and tried to think through his panic.

He'd woken late in the morning, Will forced himself to remember the steps of his day, and upset half the bed in his rush out the door. While he had good intentions of coming back to set it to rights later in the day, he hadn't had the chance and his bed was the same mess when he fell into it that it had been when he left it so precipitously. Still, the scarf should have been somewhere on the bed, even if it had been knocked out from under the pillow.

At this idea, Will had a thought. A terrible thought. A horrible, terrible, evil thought.

Kate, as the Sanctuary residents had learned to their dismay, had the habit of borrowing things without asking. It was always at least 'borrowing,' things made their way back to their respective owners in roughly the same condition, but it meant that anything in plain sight might become part of her outfit for the day while the rightful owner cursed a blue streak at its disappearance. Remonstrations had little effect. It never seemed to occur to Kate until an incensed individual was liberating a belt or shirt or boots from her possession that someone might have wanted an object that seemed to be abandoned. In time, it was simply a trait they had learned to plan around and even Magnus admitted that at least they had all grown much better about putting things away.

It meant, however, that if his scarf had been lying on top of the bed… Will couldn't even finish the thought.

What he could do, though, was get dressed and stake out Kate's room. Which he proceeded to do. Swiftly.

At the point where the late hours of the night blend into the early hours of the morning, when his nerves were fighting a twitchy battle with his exhaustion, Kate sauntered around the corner and stopped in the hallway at the sight of him slumped like a sentinel against her door frame.

"What's up?" she asked warily, edging towards the door knob.

Will ran an eye down her outfit, but no scarf was to be found. Maybe she'd discarded it in her room earlier.

"My scarf," his voice was rough with sleep and disuse, it took a few tries until he was audible. "I want it back."

"Your scarf?" Kate asked blankly. He didn't panic. Yet.

"Yeah. The one from my room. On my bed. It's gray." When Kate's eyes widened and she looked down at her front quickly, he let himself panic a little.

"Uh, the thing is," she avoided his eyes, sliding her thumbs into her belt loops nervously. "I seem to have momentarily left it?"

"Left it?" He couldn't stop his voice from rising. "Where?"

"Some friends had a little get together in town. Look, it's no big deal," she gave him a 'we're all cool' smile that he really wasn't buying into right now, "I'll give them a call in the morning and go get it. Easy. Don't worry."

"Can't you call them now?" he tried to dial back the pleading in his voice.

"Uh," apparently he'd caught her flat-footed with that one. "I guess? I mean, they're probably still up so… yeah, let me call them." Whatever look he had on his face, Will kinda wished he could store it for the future, as Kate quickly fumbled her phone from her pocket and hit a few buttons.

"Hey, Angelo, it's Kate. Yeah," she chuckled a little nervously, eyeing Will, "I can't seem to get enough of you tonight. Look, I don't want to keep you, but I left a scarf there tonight? And it's not exactly mine. Can you see where it's at? I'll come and get it tomorrow. Yeah, thanks." Kate tucked the mouthpiece under her neck and mouthed 'he's looking' at Will. "What? Oh, it's gray. Knit." There was a longer pause this time. Kate watched his fingers tap a frantic ballad against the door frame. "Uh huh. Oh. Well, uh," she winced, and he straightened at the movement. "Are you sure? Right. Well, thanks for looking. If you find it… yeah, thanks." She took the phone away from her ear and stared at it for a few minutes. He didn't interrupt her, hoping to change the words about to come out of her mouth.

"So, I guess he couldn't find it," she finally tried tentatively. Even expecting it didn't help, the sentence fell like a blow right to his sternum. "Look," her tone had turned a bit frantic. This expression should be patented, some far-off corner of his mind mused. "I'll go over in the morning and look, maybe he just missed it. Or maybe someone will notice that they have the wrong scarf at some point. Y'know? It'll be okay."

No. It wouldn't. Will was pretty certain on that point. He didn't even know what to say to her and, after staring at her blankly for a long beat, he gave up waiting for words to come to him. He just brushed past her and headed for his office. Maybe he could at least salvage something out of this night, even if it was only paperwork.

* * *

A week had elapsed since the Great Scarf Heist when he looked up at a knock on his office doorframe to see Magnus waiting expectantly on the threshold.

"May I come in?"

As though he could turn her away, "Of course. Did you need the workup of Greta sooner than expected?" The psychological profile was a key point in a teleconference that wasn't scheduled until the following morning, but things had a habit of moving.

"No, tomorrow will be fine, still," dismissing the only reason that Will could fathom for her seeking him out during her peak working hours, she leaned against the corner of his desk. Lost, he watched her expression. If he wasn't mistaken, she was trying to figure out an angle of approach. He should probably brace himself.

"I am uncertain precisely what happened," she began cautiously, after a long moment, "but you do realize that Kate did not mean to lose your scarf."

His scarf was not a topic that he had remotely been expecting. Wasn't this just delightfully awkward?

"I know that," he said, trying to burn a hole through the wood of his desk using only his eyes and nonexistent telekinetic powers. "I told her it was fine."

"Which doesn't explain her somewhat indecipherable visit to me earlier, desperately trying to find a replacement."

"She can't," Will blinked at the unplanned amount of bitterness in his tone. "I mean, it was unique," he tried to cover mildly.

"So I informed her. Which was when she spilled the entire story to me," Magnus sighed and he glanced up to see her shake her head. "I did read her another lecture on her habit of borrowing items. This one might actually stick."

"It'd be nice," he tried to manage a concerned, but not obsessive tone. It wasn't an entire success.

"If you're worried about winter," he knew by her tone that she was trying to jolly him out of his mood, "I can make you another scarf. Between Wexford and the coastal mess I've gotten quite a bit of practice in lately."

A half-smile was about the best he could give her. In recompense, Will contributed a diversion of his own. "When did you start knitting, anyway?"

"Ah," she smiled, half-sitting on the desk, "at first it was just a bit of piecework I could do to keep people happy when I was a girl. It seemed more useful than any other option. I used to knit all the bandages for my father's work," she added nostalgically. Despite himself, the heaviness that had dogged him for the past week melted slightly under her words and he leaned towards her curiously. "I let it slip over the years, but when, when I was pregnant," his eyes widened and he stared at her unabashedly, "it helped me keep sane, I think," she laughed.

"I can't even imagine that," he spoke before thinking, then winced.

"It was an experience," she admitted ruefully, "but not without its joys. After, I kept up the habit. It's calming. I remember the first knitting I ever made for Ashley," and he wasn't certain that he would ever not have the feeling that he should hold his breath when she mentioned Ashley's name. As though the slightest movement from him would shatter the moment and Magnus would decide to bury her pain again instead. "Very typical, her baby blanket. Had I known then how long that blanket would be around, I would probably have searched for a way to incorporate Kevlar into the strands. I was forever repairing frayed edges, it seemed. She kept it always, even," her voice stuttered for a moment and then Will did hold his breath, "even when she was long past carrying it with her everywhere, she always slept with it under her pillow."

Will hoped her fond smile would overcome the fact that his face was quite possibly going to catch on fire in the near future. Quickly, he averted it to examine the grain of the wood in his desk. Interesting whorl in the lower corner, there.

"Will?" That tone could mean that she had seen and translated his blush, or simply that she had come out of her memories and didn't know why he refused to look at her anymore. "Oh, Will."

That tone (beginning with surprise and headed down to a deep, sad note) had fewer options.

"It's getting late," he told his desk seriously, "I should get some sleep." Like that would be happening.

Still, he rose to his feet, nodded good night to his desk, and tried to pick his way swiftly to the hallway. A hand wrapping around his upper arm froze him mid-motion.

"I'll apologize to Kate tomorrow," he blurted out, trying to keep whatever bit of censure or placation was waiting on her lips from emerging.

"I'm beginning to believe that she hasn't apologized to you enough," came the unexpected murmur. Startled, he glanced up to see a soft light in her eyes, instead of the expected exasperation. They both knew he was far too old to need some sort of – well, security scarf or whatever. Smiling slightly, Magnus continued in an odd non sequiter, "After my father's disappearance, I kept his library exactly as he always had it: the same books side by side, the same authors on the same number of shelves from the floor, all together with no new additions. Until one day a new hire took it upon himself to redo the cataloguing system. When I returned to find my father's books scattered throughout the library, I could have committed murder, no matter how good the intentions."

Sorting through her story and his surprise, Will guessed that she was trying to say that she understood.

"It's just…" he began softly, before hesitating. Did he really want to confess to this? A light squeeze to his arm brought his glance back to a pair of calmly waiting blue eyes. "I could sleep," he rushed quietly before nervously exhaling.

"Ah," she exhaled a bit heavily herself, "that will be hard to replicate…"

"I know," Will hurriedly supplied, "But it was, well, a bit ridiculous, I guess. I'll be easier on Kate. Though, I didn't think I was actually being mean to her…" he trailed off, frowning as he contemplated recent encounters with Kate. Had he done anything untoward?

"I suspect it was more what you didn't do than anything you did," Magnus added quietly. Will could feel the look of confusion staking out territory on his face before he heard her laugh. "Not one grin or smart remark in days. I didn't think it possible." Ah. Now he felt comfortable glaring at her, which had little effect past a louder laugh. Sobering, she continued, "And I've never felt that anything one needs is ridiculous. Perhaps it's simply my condition, but I've always believed in taking comfort where one can find it."

Awkwardly, he shrugged, "I guess I'll find it somewhere else," he tried to pull off nonchalant. Given the skeptical look he received in return, he didn't quite manage.

"Hm. Have you slept since Kate lost it?" she asked in response.

"I've pretty much always had insomnia, Magnus," he dismissed, tugging his arm slightly.

"That's not a 'yes,'" she pointed out, rubbing his arm slightly before releasing it to him once more.

"It doesn't…" was as far as he got before Magnus interrupted.

"It does matter. I had thought," she mused as he swallowed the end of his sentence, "that you were looking a bit peaked."

"I'm feeling really tired tonight, though," he interrupted, trying to avert any line of thought that might lead him into the infirmary. "So I'm going to try this sleep thing again." Quickly, he made his way to the door.

For a wonder, Magnus didn't even try to stop him.

* * *

Two long, sleepless hours later, Will was tired of staring at the ceiling. He'd already memorized the plastered whorls and could picture their exact location even with the lights completely off. Maybe he should just give in, call it a night, and get some work done. Even if the thought did make him slightly nauseous.

He rolled over and switched on the bedside lamp, even as he heard a quiet knock on his door, followed by the door opening quietly inwards far enough for someone to slip inside.

"Magnus?" he whispered, squinting at the figure.

"Did I wake you?"

"No," he answered without thinking. "That is, um."

"I'd stick with 'no,' Will," Magnus advised as she stepped close enough to the bed that he could see her arms held a mound of something dark blue. "You don't lie very well even under the best of conditions."

"Did you come here just to insult me?" he asked wryly, letting his lips quirk so that she wouldn't take him seriously.

"No, just an added advantage," with a broad smile at his exaggerated eye roll, she perched on the edge of his bed, settling her armload between them.

This close, he could tell that it was a knitted piece and, from the size, he would guess it was a throw. Will fiddled with a looped edge as he tried to figure out what to say.

"I know it's not the same," Magnus saved him the trouble, "but don't you think it might be worth a try?"

"It's just," he tried to figure out how to phrase his thought without insulting her or giving too much away, "the scarf was, I mean, I kind of, well, helped. Sort of. You know, when I wasn't half asleep," he tried to lighten the statement with a joke.

"I know, but it will take us quite a while to make a blanket."

Wait. "It will? You mean, we are?" He wasn't sure that was a sentence.

"Mm hm. We can start tomorrow. After you get some sleep," she added pointedly. "And, if it makes a difference, this throw was always intended for you," he blinked and looked down at it again. "You're just getting your Christmas present a little early. Hopefully it will be a little harder for Kate to wander off with."

"You made this for me?" Will was still stuck a sentence or two behind.

"I remembered you liked this yarn." He did, it was the same ridiculously soft yarn as the scarf had been. Even thinking about it in the past tense made his throat tighten. Okay, don't think about the scarf, focus on the throw in front of you.

"It's so soft. Thank you, Magnus," he looked up at her shyly. At her answering smile, he had a thought. "Um, since its early Christmas or something," he sat up and leaned past her to rummage through the nightstand. "I suppose it's only fair that you should get this a little early, too." Trying not to second guess his actions, he pressed his own covert knitting project into her hands and then studiously tried to drill a hole through the bed with his eyes. What if it was too much like Ashley? He didn't want to make her sad. It wasn't exactly perfect, either, what with it being his first project, but it was as close as redoing every other stitch could make it. He tried to remember to breathe.

"Will, it's lovely," she sounded sincere. Okay, he could breathe again. He looked back up to see her pulling it around her neck. The deep red looked as good on her as he had thought it would when he was digging through bins at the store. It was a scarf, but unlike his sturdy winter scarf, this one was delicate and thin, meant more for decoration than function. It was also ridiculously soft. He couldn't really see the point in working with any other kind of yarn. "Thank you." Now he was certain it was alright. That smile never came out unless she was very pleased.

"You're welcome," he grinned, because who wouldn't at that smile. "Will I have to learn a new stitch for the blanket?" His curiosity couldn't help but pose the question.

"Yes. I'll have to teach you to purl," Magnus thought a moment. "There are a few different blankets we can make that should be doable for a beginner. We can choose tomorrow. But for now," she let her voice trail off meaningfully, with a raised eyebrow.

"I've always had insomnia, Magnus," he had to point out. "It goes away eventually."

"The sooner the better," was the only response he got before she took possession of the throw once more. "Lay back down." Will thought of protesting, but decided that complying might be more painless when she leveled her Do It Now look his way. Rolling off of the elbow that was propping him up, he rested against the pillow once more, turned slightly on his side so that he could raise his own What Now? eyebrow at her in turn.

As he watched, Magnus stood and shook the throw out. He had only enough time to get a slight sense of the pattern before she settled it over him, bringing a fringed edge up over his shoulder. Sitting again, she reached over and ran the back of her fingers down his cheek. As his eyes closed involuntarily, Will felt her cup his chin and lean close.

A kiss brushed his temple as she softly ordered, "Now, go to sleep. You'll need to be alert for purling."

The room darkened behind his closed eyelids as he heard the bedside lamp click off and then the steady click of Magnus' heels making their way across the room before the soft thump sound of the door being gently closed behind her.

Will concentrated on his breathing, trying to set it to a slow, steady pace and not get his hopes up. As he drew in a breath to an eight-count, he noticed that the throw carried the faint scent of Magnus – probably from being carried through the hallways. Or maybe all the nights she spent working on it, loop by loop. Snaking a hand out of the blankets, he ran the fringe through his fingers, curling strands around one then another.

He didn't even notice when his breathing deepened of its own accord and he dropped into slumber.


End file.
